Eternal Advertising And Promotion Spend Rises 41% To Rs 1,138 Crore
Eternal advertising and sales promotion expenses reached Rs 1,138 crore in the quarter ended 30 September 2026, up 41.2% from Rs 806 crore in the same quarter a year earlier.
- Q2FY27 advertising and sales promotion: Rs 1,138 crore
- Year-on-year change: up 41.2% from Rs 806 crore
- Quarter-on-quarter change: up 20.4% from Rs 945 crore
- Platform split: not separately disclosed
What The Eternal Advertising Line Does And Does Not Say
It is one line covering three businesses. Eternal owns the food delivery platform Zomato, the quick-commerce platform Blinkit and the going-out business District, and the figure is not split between them, nor between advertising and sales promotion. A rise of this size therefore says the group is buying more attention and more discounting across a wider footprint, and nothing more precise than that.
The quarterly step matters as much as the annual one. Spending rose a fifth on the April to June quarter, which is a festive-quarter build rather than a one-off.
Where The Money Is Going
Blinkit added 308 net new stores in the quarter, taking the count to 2,751, and the guidance moved up: more than 3,500 stores by March 2027 against an earlier 3,000, with current plans pointing to roughly 5,000 by March 2028. New stores in smaller cities, the company said, are reaching around 1,000 orders a day on a similar timeline to metro stores, with average order values at 85 to 90% of metro levels.
Blinkit's net order value grew 79.3% to Rs 20,940 crore. Food delivery through Zomato recorded net order value of Rs 11,445 crore, up 21.5%, with average monthly transacting customers up 16% to 28 million.
The Line In The Letter Worth Reading Twice
Deepinder Goyal, founder and vice-chairman, said part of the digital marketing spend on new customer acquisition could shift to AI agents as those agents become more able to complete purchases. For a business whose customer acquisition runs through app install and performance media, that is a statement about where the media budget sits, not only about technology.
There is a second position worth noting. Albinder Dhindsa, chief executive of Blinkit, said in the letter that the company would rather use shelf space and visibility to help third-party brands grow, and earn advertising revenue from them, than compete with those brands through its own labels: "We don't want to become both the platform and a competitor to the brands on the platform."
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